Ros
Maybe I can help....

Firstly, 4 sites for a school were put before the Mayor. He personally excluded from consultation the site said to be the best for educational reasons.

After consultation the Mayor opted for the least favoured site (wrong location and site too small). Known as the Playtower site it includes a number of Victorian buildings, which were to be incorporated into the new 'state of the art'* school. The site depended on the police not putting the old station to the open market.**

Meanwhile, at a public the Mayor decribed his vision of the new school on the Playtower site, which implied there was no problem. The following month he announced via a newspaper a change of plan.

Having just spent ?1M on Ladywell Centre the new plan was now to demolish it less than 3 years later and replace it with a new school (wrong location and site issues).

And so the Save Ladywell Pool campaign was born to cries from Herod they should be drowned at birth for allegedly being "politically motivated", for depriving the children of Lewisham a school and were putting at risk the entire fabric of secondary schools in the Borough (BSF).

Herod not wishing to throw the baby out with the bath water suggested the public tell him where to stick the school. All 20 suggested alternative sites were put before the full council.

Of the then 54 council members 44 were Blair babes in one form or another, and it was decided demolishing Ladywell Centre was the best and only option.

And so it was at the 2006 election.....

But the partners of the council (PFS) were not happy and told the Mayor he was putting at grave risk the funding for secondary schools.

Thus with less than a majority on the council the Mayor looked around for alternative solutions, and behold the site chosen by the Mayor for the new school was the one the Mayor had excluded from consultation 4/5 years earlier.


*Alarm bells rings when I see "state of the art" in a council report.

**It was later revealed that 2-3 months before the Mayor's vision the police had told him the station was going on the open market.

***Most of this is written is jest but the basic story is corect.


In 2006(?) it was revealed the police had informed the Mayor in December 2003 to put the old cop shop on the market.
Over ?1m had just been spent on Ladywell Leisure centre to keep it open till the new 'state of the art' landmark centre was opened in 2010/11.